


Echoed the Vast Silence

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: First and Commander: Namira Lavellan x Cullen Rutherford [7]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawal, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 07:17:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3479219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nightmares of a former templar, and the silence of afterward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoed the Vast Silence

He was  _there_ , again.

Voices murmuring in his ears, slick and oily like the feel of blood and fresh viscera, whispering everything foul and shameful he’d ever thought.  They called his name, twisting it, perverting it until the word his mother named him sounded filthy.   _Cullen, Cullen_ , they called, the sound worming into his ears and his head.  He clapped his hands over his ears, trying to shut them out, but the sound came from the inside, welling up inside of him like poison.  The voices laughed, a skittering scratch that buzzed louder the more he tried not to hear it.

They taunted him.   _You let them die,_  they whispered.   _You wanted them to die._  Dead templars ringing his feet like so much garbage, their corpses spent and wasted, his friends’ bodies limp on the ground.  Blood clung to his boots and every step he paced he felt the stickiness as he lifted his feet.   _You wanted this, to wallow in their mire.  Killer, murderer.   You did not try to save them.  Coward!_  Accusations creeping across his skin, the stench of blood and something worse, something fouler, bitter in his nostrils.  He could not get away.  

He no longer remembered what he had or hadn’t done, if he was guilty as they said or if they spewed only lies.  He begged them to leave him alone, stop talking to him, go away.  He begged them to kill him, for wouldn’t death be better than this madness?  Surely anything would be better than seeing human and elven faces ripped asunder with demons pouring from them, abominations wearing flesh like livery and their mouths open, open, hungry.  Mouths that used to sing the Chant, mouths that whispered the fetid slur of magic but no more, no more, there was only slavering and a greedy sucking noise that made his stomach turn.  Anything would be better than seeing the men he laughed with, fought with, served with, sang with crumpled on the floor with their throats ripped out, after the demons’ maws had filled to choking with their skin and hair and teeth.  Remnants of those he used to know dripped, dripped from their ragged mouths to stain the floor anew, and he wanted to scream.  But the screaming did not do any good.  He had learned that already.

He tore at the stone floor, rubbing his fingertips raw and bloody inside his gloves with the effort.  He knew he could not escape that way but still he scratched at the ground like a dog, not knowing what else to do.

They laughed at him, and panic took him.  He clutched his hands together and fumbled into a kneeling position to try and pray.  But the words left him, the Chant left him, the Maker left him and there was only the noisome whine of all those  _voices_.  He closed his eyes but still he could hear, still he could see, the desecration all around him.  He clawed at his face, fingers digging at his eyes to erase the way the blood pooled on the ground, the faces in their rictus masks, severed limbs and ruined organs and beyond him, those creatures, those monsters, calling to him, why couldn’t they stop  _calling_  him with those voices —

 _Cullen_ , an off-key choir, a snake’s sibilance, a woman’s gentle crooning, a man’s scream —

 _Cullen_ , a child crying in the night, an orgiastic moan, a Revered Mother’s steady voice —

 _Cullen_ , wolves howling, rats screaming, throaty laughter and ragged breathing, sobbing, sobbing —

And he opened his eyes, jerking awake from the nightmare.  The noises stopped save one, and he realized he was the only one crying.

Cullen sat there shivering beneath his blankets, wiping his face with one hand, his breathing slowing back to normal.  That had been a bad one — an understatement, he thought ruefully.  There were no demons in the room with him, no scent of blood or voices ringing round him.  There was only the clean smell of the night air, the stars visible through the hole in his roof, the soft sound of the wind.  It had only been the nightmare after all.

He stared into the darkness, reached out one hopeful hand to the other side of the bed.  He felt her empty place there and his heart sank.  Of course.  She was out in the Hissing Wastes, hunting Venatori and templars, far away from him.  She had been gone for days, and he did not know why he expected to find her there in his bed.  He managed a small smile at the thought, remembering their most recent night together; she had been so beautiful in his arms, her skin against his electric, their movements together rich and languid.  He’d lain awake after she had fallen asleep, listening to the soft sound of her breaths.  Maker only knew how he had become so lucky.  

The smile faded.  He knew they had much work before them; the world rested on their shoulders, and he knew she had her part to do, as he had his.  Yet he was still disappointed to realize she was not here.  Especially after…

He sighed.  The shivering lessened, leaving him exhausted.  He missed the numbness lyrium afforded, the way it made even the horrors fade into something that could be borne.  But he didn’t want to be another man in his fifties with clouded eyes and slurring voice, hands trembling too badly to hold a sword.  Before he had stopped taking it, he had noticed troubles with his memory, patches where he knew that he should know something, and yet the knowledge of it could not be reached.  He had started to realize the way he hungered for the lyrium when he had been without it too long, that biting, aching feeling threading through his bones and head and heart.  It had frightened him.  It had angered him.  The idea of falling into the lyrium forever — he could not bear it.  So much of himself had been lost in Ferelden and Kirkwall.  He would not lose more to liquid blue, no matter how it sang.

Yet he could not have understood before how difficult it would be.  He ran a hand through his hair, his fingers mussing it.  His head began to ache, as it often did after one of these dreams.  He gritted his teeth, letting out a long, hissing breath.  It would pass eventually, he knew, but often not for hours.  

He rubbed at his temples, trying not to think about the dream again.  He could get through this.  He had before.  He would again.  It was what he told himself when things got bad, though he only believed it some of the time.

He wished again that she was here with him.  She believed he could withstand it, this letting go.  That was something.  Even at his worst she did not shy from him.  He felt a small stirring of warmth at the thought.  

But it was times like these, when the night pressed in upon him, when the sound of voices gibbering in his mind was fresh and raw, that he wondered if he had made a terrible mistake.

There were no voices here to answer him, and the silence brought little comfort of its own.  

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly I really enjoy writing horror description -- making everything slippery and visceral and raw. This was mostly an excuse to do that and also think back to DA:O, I feel much more sympathetic towards Cullen now than I did then...
> 
> The title for this is from the Canticle of Threnodies.


End file.
